Review: Future Hosting
Among the web hosting providers I've used over the years, I've used two providers of managed VPS. Both have been awesome - as I'll detail below. If you're interested, I've written a comparative review of both. Let me stress at the outset that I've had very good experiences of both providers, and would cheerfully recommend either. They're just slightly different.
Today, I'd like to review one of those providers in more detail: Future Hosting.
Meet Future Hosting
I no longer use Future Hosting, but that's because my needs changed, not because they did. They remained excellent. I was a customer for 3 and a bit years between 2012 and 2015. I am certainly writing this review from first-hand experience.
Future Hosting has been around since 2001, which is a long-time for any business that is focussed on internet services. They're headquartered in Michigan USA, although (see below) they host services elsewhere as well. From the outset, their core value has been to provide quality services, going the extra mile if needs be. This is what sets them apart - they aim to be good rather than cheap. Having said which, they are very well priced for such good quality service.
What Future Hosting Offer
For their VPS services, Future Hosting use Parallels Virtuozzo virtualisation. They now have pure SSD drives in all their VPS nodes. Their plans divide into two types: SSD VPS and "Hybrid VPS". The Hybrid range simply means that they put you on a node with fewer customers, and give you significantly more resources per plan. It's still a VPS rather than a Dedicated Server, but the idea is that it's moving towards dedicated hardware.
Their mainline offering is managed VPS. They also offer unmanaged VPS and dedicated servers, again at competitive prices.
These services are offered out of 6 locations — 3 in the US, and 3 elsewhere. Take the US first - they're in Southfield MI (near their headquarters) for a central location, Santa Clara CA on the west coast, and Miami FL on the east coast. In Europe, they're in what they call London (although my UK readers will know where Byfleet is), and they've recently opened up in the Netherlands for mainland Europe. Lastly, they're in Brisbane Australia.
Managed VPS Hosting
As I say, Managed VPS is their mainline offering, and they excel at it. Support is only by ticket, but tickets are the best way to get help on technical support issues. They respond promptly and professionally at any time of day or night (under half an hour, often much faster). Routine tasks they'll undertake swiftly. Less common tasks (like installing custom software on a server) they'll do cheerfully when asked on a best-effort basis. They can also schedule work for the middle of the night, if you want something done when your websites are less busy. Again, you wake up in the morning and find they've just done it.
cPanel is included in the price of their VPS, as is "Future Engineer Standard". This is reactive management - you can ask for help with anything you want, from initial setup and tuning, to solving one-off needs . But you need to ask. For an upgrade you can opt for "Future Engineer Pro", where they take over monitoring all the messages the server gives out, and handle them for you. Regardless, before delivering your server to you, they set it up, install the control panel and firewall, and harden and tune everything. It saves you the headache that some people get with an unmanaged provider, of finding their server is hacked because they didn't know what to do to secure it after delivery.
Unmanaged VPS Hosting
They also offer unmanaged servers with no control panel or management.
Dedicated Servers
They also have a range of dedicated servers. These again come with the highly supportive Future Engineer services, and are surprisingly well priced for the excellent specifications you get on their servers.
Plans and Prices
Below you'll find the current plans and prices of all their VPS offerings. Dedicated servers are as advertised on their website. You can sort and filter the table below if that helps. If you spot any errors, please let me know.
| Plan | RAM | Disk Space | Price / Month | Price / Quarter | Price / year | Order |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HYB1 | 8192MB | 120GB | $100.00 | $300.00 | $1200.00 | |
| HYB2 | 12288MB | 160GB | $140.00 | $420.00 | $1680.00 | |
| HYB3 | 16384MB | 200GB | $180.00 | $540.00 | $2160.00 | |
| SSD1 | 1024MB | 30GB | $30.00 | $90.00 | $360.00 | |
| SSD1-UM | 1024MB | 30GB | $10.00 | $30.00 | $120.00 | |
| SSD2 | 2048MB | 40GB | $40.00 | $120.00 | $480.00 | |
| SSD2-UM | 2048MB | 40GB | $20.00 | $60.00 | $240.00 | |
| SSD3 | 3072MB | 50GB | $50.00 | $150.00 | $600.00 | |
| SSD3-UM | 3072MB | 50GB | $30.00 | $90.00 | $360.00 | |
| SSD4 | 4096MB | 60GB | $60.00 | $180.00 | $720.00 | |
| SSD4-UM | 4096MB | 60GB | $40.00 | $120.00 | $480.00 | |
| SSD5 | 5120MB | 80GB | $70.00 | $210.00 | $840.00 | |
| SSD5-UM | 5120MB | 80GB | $50.00 | $150.00 | $600.00 | |
| SSD6 | 6144MB | 100GB | $80.00 | $240.00 | $960.00 | |
| SSD6-UM | 6144MB | 100GB | $60.00 | $180.00 | $720.00 |